This disclosure relates to dispensing apparatus, more particularly to dispensing apparatus for dispensing food product such as ice cream and other forms of frozen or semi-frozen confection. The disclosure also relates to methods for dispensing food product such as ice cream and other forms of frozen or semi-frozen confection, and containers for use in said apparatus or methods.
It is known to dispense individual portions of ice cream or similar frozen confections (such as sorbet and the like) from a multi-portion container, hereinafter referred to as a “bulk” container. For example, WO 89/05096 describes a dispensing apparatus for expressing individual portions of ice cream through ban outlet in a deformable bulk container of ice cream. In particular, a drive mechanism is operable to drive a dispensing head to compress the container and express product through the outlet.
A problem occurs when trying to accurately control and/or monitor the dispensing of specific portion sizes of product from the container. This problem can be particularly acute when handling frozen or semi frozen product at low temperatures.